What happens when, in a nation under lockdown, teaching moves online? How is English as a school subject being differently configured? What are the gains and losses? This essay examines, through the prism of a single online lesson, the approach to English, to curriculum and pedagogy, that has been adopted by the Oak National Academy website, a repository of online lessons that has been sponsored by the Department for Education in England. It offers a highly prescriptive, monologic approach to English, an approach that is structured around the pedagogy of 'direct instruction' and the demands of high-stakes assessment.